Arrested young man in Nghe An using Zalo to commit fraud

On February 9, Nghi Loc District Police (Nghe An) announced that they had prosecuted and temporarily detained Pham Van Nguyen (born in 1991, residing in Hung Phuc Commune, Hung Nguyen District) for 3 months to investigate the crime of Fraudulent appropriation of property.

According to the investigation agency, it had previously received a report from a woman residing in Nghi Cong Bac commune (Nghi Loc) stating that from August to October 2018, she had been scammed by a Zalo account named Long Binh, introduced as Long, working at a financial company via Zalo, and had appropriated 84 million VND.

Subject Pham Van Nguyen. Photo: Ngoc Diep

The leaders of Nghi Loc District Police established a special project coded 119L to fight against the case. Using professional measures, on January 30, 2019, the police identified Pham Van Nguyen as the perpetrator and issued an arrest warrant. Working with the investigation agency, Nguyen confessed to his crime.

Accordingly, since May 2018, Pham Van Nguyen used a phone number to register a Zalo account under the name Hoang Long, then changed his name to Long Binh and posted a lot of information and advertising images on Zalo diary to show that he was a person operating in the field of lending and financial support with very simple lending procedures.

At the same time, the subject searched for and made friends with many people, looking for people who needed to borrow money to scam. When someone contacted him to ask for a loan, the subject introduced himself as Long, working at a financial company affiliated with a bank and pretended to guide him through the loan procedures very simply, such as just sending a photo of the household registration book and ID card via Zalo account to make a loan application.

Evidence related to the case. Photo: Nhat Tuan

After the victim trusted him and sent him information, Nguyen told the victim to transfer 3-5 million VND to him to send to the staff to process the quick disbursement procedure. When the victim agreed, the subject borrowed a friend's bank account on Zalo and instructed the victim to transfer the money. Then, Nguyen asked the friend to withdraw the cash and give it directly to the subject at the meeting point or asked the friend to transfer it to another bank, trying to steal it.

With this trick, Nguyen defrauded and appropriated 160 million VND from the victims. After arresting and searching Pham Van Nguyen's rented room in Cua Nam ward (Vinh city), the authorities discovered 12 N2O cylinders (Dinitrogen monoxide or nitrous oxide) used to pump into laughing balloons. N2O is only licensed for industrial use and socio-economic development, not licensed for sale or human use.

Nghi Loc District Police are investigating the case and are informing anyone who has been scammed by Nguyen to contact them to report the case.